Wayne Boyd claims two second-place finishes at the USF2000 National Championships

Wayne Boyd claims two second-place finishes at the USF2000 National ChampionshipsBritish F3 Media

Northern Ireland’s Wayne Boyd brought home two podium finishes from this weekend’s USF2000 National Championships presented by Cooper Tires and Powered by Mazda, placing second in both Round 7 and Round 8 in the competition.

While a few drivers call Mid Ohio home and several teams having had the opportunity to test prior to the season, the challenge for Boyd to be competitive was big. Mid Ohio Sports Car Course is known as a highly technical and challenging race track. However, with only an hour of testing time prior to the weekend, Boyd proved to be up to the competition in his first practice session. Throughout the four sessions of testing prior to qualifications, he would never leave the top five.

Qualifying on Saturday morning, the series points’ leader Petri Suvanto showed that he would be the man to beat. However, Boyd, with his British Formula 3 International experience proved that he is a quick study of race tracks and posted the second quickest time of 1:22:71 over the 2.258 mile course, just .778 of a second back. With the wave of the green flag for Round 7, Boyd was the only driver to keep Suvanto honest, but at the end of twenty laps, they would cross the finish line 1-2.

On a double race weekend, qualifying for the second race is set by the fastest race laps of Race 1. Boyd’s fastest race lap of 1:22:648 would earn him a spot outside Row 2 for the second race. With thousands of spectators on hand just prior to the IZOD IndyCar race, the field of Mazda Road to Indy drivers took the green and charged into Turn 1. Boyd took Andretti Autosports’ Spencer Pigot on the inside of Turn 1 and then set his sights on Suvanto. Boyd and Suvanto pulled away from the rest of pack, consistently lap after lap, stretching an unprecedented lead for the USF2000 competition. But in the end, Boyd would not have enough for Suvanto. They would finish 1-2 at the checkered flag.

Boyd commented, “The race was, again, not too bad for us. I got off to a better start than I did yesterday and went from third straight into second. The first four laps I could stay with Petri but after that he pulled away. I just tried to stay consistent and do a good job to keep pulling away from third place. That was basically all I could do and to make sure I passed the lapped cars well. I want to thank Belardi Auto Racing. The team has come on so well from the start of the year. A massive thanks to them and the Milwaukee Irish Fest and TheAppBuilder. I appreciate their support.”

Boyd announced early in the weekend the partnership with TheAppBuilder, a program designed for non-technical people to build their own apps. TheAppBuilder is powered by JamPot Technologies, Ltd., a company based in Boyd’s hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Next up: The US F2000 Series heads to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, August 17th – 21st, which is the same weekend for the Milwaukee Irish Festival. The largest Irish Festival in the United States, the Festival fans welcomed Wayne during his first visit to Milwaukee in June and have been cheering him on ever since. Boyd will be attending the Irish Festival during the race weekend helping to celebrate Irish heritage and culture here in America.